Application for Realityshifted
Character: Katara
Series/Fandom: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Deviance: d1
Age: 14
Gender: Female
Species: Human (SUBSPECIES WATERBENDER LAWL)
Canon Used: Television show
Appearance: She has hair loopies. Er. ...just look at her icons. /lazy
Psychology:
She’s a mom in a kid’s body; she pretty much raised Sokka, and as a result she’s extremely protective, motherly, and at times pushy and overbearing. She’s as stubborn as an Earthbender and has a Firebender’s temper. Her vindictiveness is rather spectacular, and she can hold a grudge long past its expiration date with everyone else involved. It took Jet dying for her to really forgive him for lying to her and destroying the Earth Nation town.
Her moral and ethical standards are, at times, questionable; she’s acted the part of Robin Hood on several occasions for the benefit of others and herself, and she doesn’t hesitate to use non-lethal force to get what she wants. It’s a part of her no-nonsense personality, in some ways, but at the same time she seems to get a deal of pleasure from punishing those she sees as bullies or bad people.
She cares passionately for others, and has a heart of unquestionable warmth for those she knows and the helpless that she sees. She will go miles--literally or figuratively--out of her way to help people in need. She will, in her own words, never turn her back on someone who needs her, ever. She puts herself and really the entire expedition to the Fire Nation at risk at one point to keep that promise to herself. If she can (if she even THINKS she can help) help, she will help, and woebetide to anyone who tries to stand in her way.
After Ba Sing Se and Zuko’s near-alliance and then betrayal, she got harder, colder, more vindictive and in many ways more distant from the others; more of a caretaker and less of a friend, even. She's determined to protect Aang at all costs, and for that reason pushes herself to the limit not only of her power but of her willingness to harm another living being, which may account for some of this distance. She’s trying to disconnect as much as possible to avoid the guilt and psychological trauma of willfully harming someone else, possibly killing them.
She has an absolute terror of losing the people she cares about. It’s something she would never acknowledge, but after her mother’s death and what--to her mind--felt like abandonment by her father, she has major attachment issues. She is extremely prickly when it comes to being left behind unwillingly, and absolutely hates it when people insist on carrying a burden by themselves that she could possibly share.
Katara seems to have a particular sensitivity to lies; if someone lies to her, especially about something important, and she finds out, there’s little question that she won’t be speaking to them for the foreseeable future and will take even longer to think about trusting them again. Her trust is a fragile thing; she’s very willing to give it at first, almost naively willing, in fact, but once betrayed it’s harder to get back than SOMETHING HARD TO GET BACK.
Her mother’s death is never far from her mind. It's been a shaping force in her life, whether she acknowledges that fact or not. She misses her mother as desperately now as she ever has, and her most valuable possession is the betrothal necklace her mother handed down to her. Any slight to her heritage will draw a massive reaction, as will any implication that she doesn't understand loss. She's just as driven as her brother to defeat the Fire Nation, though not so obvious in her bias against them, choosing to target particular individuals with direct hatred rather than the entire nation.
Other Skills/Abilities: She is, at this point in canon, considered a Master waterbender of high caliber. She, like all waterbenders, is most powerful under the full moon. She is able to manipulate the chi in another person's body in order to heal them, though she is not nearly as powerful a healer as she is a fighter. Her creativity has won her a number of fights, and her lack of truly structured Waterbending teaching (up until her time under Master Paku) has made her resourceful rather than sloppy. She has a very instinctive grasp of her connection with her element, and it responds to her temper (less now than when she was untrained) with a good deal more force than an ordinary Waterbender's. To illustrate her power during the moon's ordinary cycle; she's raised columns of water thirty feet high and created enough steam to hide a Fire Nation navy ship without so much as, to be cliche, breaking a sweat.
Other Weaknesses: Her power is pretty much halved when the moon is dark. During a full lunar eclipse she would be unable to use bending at all. In spite of all her power, she's human and 14.
History: Katara was born and raised around the South Pole, in (obviously) the Southern Water Tribe, a group devastated by the war and the mass kidnapping of their waterbenders by Fire Nation raiders. Katara was the last waterbender of the Southern Water Tribe when she was a child; her mother was killed protecting her from Fire Nation raiders. Katara grew up fast after that, shouldering much of the responsibility that her mother had carried and often refusing her grandmother's help. She cared for Sokka, despite the fact that he was older, and the two are practically inseperable even if they bicker constantly. When she was twelve, her father left with the rest of the Southern Water Tribe's men to fight in the war, leaving Katara and Sokka in the care of their grandmother.
Two years later, while out fishing in a little canoe, she and Sokka were caught in a rip current that smashed their boat to pieces and left them stranded on an iceburg. During the argument that followed, Katara's instinctual waterbending ability made the iceburg crack and revealed Aang, a twelve-year-old Airbender, locked away in a trance inside the ice. When Fire Nation soldiers (led by Prince Zuko) attack their village looking for him, Katara discovers that Aang is the Avatar who disappeared one hundred years before. She determines to help him learn bending and defeat the Fire Nation, and on the pretense of knocking some Fire Nation heads, Sokka agrees to go with them to the North Pole to find Aang and Katara a Waterbending teacher.
They head first to Aang's old home, where they discover that all of the Airbenders have been massacred by the Fire Nation. When Aang finds the bones of his mentor, he loses control and enters the Avatar state, nearly destroying the temple and setting off a chain reaction that activates relics throughout the world and alerts those caring for those relics that, after 100 years, the Avatar has returned. The siblings manage to calm him and they move on, visiting Kyoshi Island (where they again faced Zuko) and meeting the female warriors there, then moving on to Omashu in the Earth Kingdom, where they met a mad old king named Bumi who turned out to be someone Aang knew from childhood. They went on, and met an earthbender named Haru whose father was imprisoned somewhere unknown. When Haru himself was arrested because of the Gaang, Katara insisted on a plan that involved her own arrest and transport to the same prison where Haru and his father were being kept, where she helped to free all the earthbenders kept there. During the solstice, when they stop to help a town with the problem of the GIANT RAMPAGING SPIRIT THAT KIDNAPS PEOPLE, they find out from Roku, one of Aang's past lives, that Aang must defeat the firelord before the end of the summer and the arrival of the comet the firebenders drew power from to begin the war.
When they discover a waterbending scroll in a pirate market and Katara steals so Aang can learn some waterbending moves--and so can she. But the pirates, once again with Zuko to help, track them down and nearly kidnap Aang. Shortly afterwards, they have their first encounter with Jet, a smooth-talking borderline sociopath who will stop at nothing to defeat the Fire Nation armies that killed his family--even going as far as wiping out an Earth Kingdom town. Katara is misled by Jet's charm and along with Aang is tricked into helping with his plan to wipe out the village which the Fire Nation is occupying; the people are saved thanks to Sokka's quick action, but Katara is furious with herself and with Jet and leaves him frozen to a tree before they leave.
Later in their travels, they meet with an old friend of Katara and Sokka's from the Southern Water Tribe who was injured and left in an abbey by Hakoda (Katara's father) to recover. After a debate over whether or not they will go with Bato to see their father, and yet another battle with Zuko, they continue on their way to the North Pole with promises to see him again soon. When they pass through a Fire Nation town during a festival, they stop so Aang can see some firebending firsthand. But when they are discovered, a stranger helps them escape, and takes them to the camp of a firebending master named Jeong Jeong. He agrees--extremely reluctantly--to teach Aang, despite the fact that he won't be learning the elements in their proper order. But Aang is careless and accidentally burns Katara's hands--when she runs away and dips them in the river, they're miraculously (or so it seems) healed, but Aang refuses to continue learning firebending--and Jeong Jeong refuses to teach him.
They stop again briefly at the Northern Air Temple on their way to the North Pole, discovering it to be occupied by Earth Kingdom refugees who have turned it into a mechanized sort of fortress. They live there in peace, the Gaang discovers, only because the leader and inventor of the group creates war machines for the Fire Nation. Despite Aang's fury over the treatment of the temple and the fact that they've been using the place to build war machines, when the Fire Nation attacks, the Gaang helps ward them off.
FINALLY, after many trials and tribulations etcetera, they reach the North Pole and the Northern Water Tribe, an immense group that lives in elaborate ice cities and serves as protectors of a shrine in which the spirits of the moon and the tides reside in the form of two fish forever circling each other. While there, Katara discovers that waterbending can be used to heal--which explains how her hands were suddenly undamaged when she immersed them in water before. While Aang learns how to fight with waterbending from Master Paku, Katara is forced to go to the healer's tents because girls aren't taught anything else. This outrages her sufficiently to go and challenge Paku, and miraculously--through sheer power and creativity--she manages to hold her own against him, earning his respect and the right to train alongside Aang.
When the Fire Nation discovers once again where the Avatar is hiding, they decide to launch an all-out campaign to destroy the Northern Water Tribe once and for all. It's a long, hard fight, costing the Northern Water Tribe's princess her life when she saves the moon-spirit from death. Aang finally enters the Avatar State and annihilates the remainder of the Fire Nation fleet, ending the battle. Time passes as they prepare to leave again, and Master Paku names Katara a waterbending master and trusts her to continue Aang's training. He also gives her water from the spirit oasis, which is said to have special healing properties. Leaving the Northern Water Tribe to rebuild not only their city, but also the decimated villages of the Southern Water Tribe, the Gaang continues their journey to try and find Aang an Earthbending teacher.
As their journey goes on, they discover that the city of Omashu has been taken by the Fire Nation, Bumi is held captive (and thus can't teach Aang) and that they are now being pursued not by Zuko, but by his sister Azula, who is absolutely ruthless and has no more concern for honor than its use in manipulating others. Following Bumi's advice and a vision Aang had, they finally manage to find an Earthbending teacher in Toph, a blind girl who uses her feet and her Earthbending to "see" the world around her. During a brief vacation time, during which Toph starts Aang's training, they journey to a desert and discover the ancient underground library of and owl-spirit. Inside is a room much like a mechanical observatory, and they discover the fact that a full solar eclipse is approaching and decide to hurry on to Ba Sing Se to alert the Earth King of this opportunity--the chance to take on the Fire Nation while their firebenders are powerless.
Unfortunately, while they were underground, Toph (who stayed above) and Appa (Aang's flying bison) were ambushed and Appa was stolen by sandbender thieves. Aang, murderous with rage, nearly kills the sandbenders responsible, but Katara calms him, and the news that Appa is probably already in Ba Sing Se calms him enough to keep traveling. When they finally reach the city, before they can try to contact the Earth King or even start their search for Appa, they discover the city's massive walls are already under attack from a giant drill captained by Azula. They manage, barely, to defeat Azula and her friends Mai and Ty Lee and destroy the drill. However, their fight has only just started; Ba Sing Se is a network of lies, controlled by a the Dai Li and their master, and it takes everything the Gaang has to reach the Earth King and prove to him that there is a war going on outside at all, let alone that they have the opportunity to do something about it.
The leader of the Dai Li is arrested, and plans move forward to wage an all-out assault against the Fire Nation. Having received news of their father's whereabouts, Sokka leaves to meet him while Katara stays to help with preparations. Aang leaves to find a guru who sent him a message via Appa (who they ended up finding in the Dai Li's custody) who can supposedly help him control the Avatar state. Azula and her friends, meanwhile, have infiltrated the Earth King's palace disguised as Kyoshi warriors. When Katara discovers them, they disable and imprison her beneath the palace in the caves. Zuko and Iroh are also found living in the city, and Zuko is thrown into prison with Katara while Iroh escapes and goes to the Gaang--who have since reunited, sans Katara--for help.
Katara, meanwhile, has been talking to Zuko. Unpleasantly. She's blamed him up, down and sideways for the war, her mother's death--and then she finds out that he lost his mother, too, thanks to the Fire Nation. This quells her as nothing else can, and she even offers to try and help him by using her water from the spirit oasis to heal his scar. As she's about to heal him, Aang and Iroh arrive, interrupting the process. They're quickly followed by Azula, and an all-out fight for their lives starts. At one point it almost looks as though Zuko will join the Gaang--but then he decides to side with his sister instead, cutting Katara's faith in him to ribbons and making her believe that everything about him--including the story of his mother--is a lie. It almost looks as though the Gaang will win when Aang begins to enter the Avatar state, but a sneak attack by Azula leaves him on the edge of death and Katara can do nothing but escape with Aang in tow, leaving Iroh to cover their escape and be captured as a traitor. She saves Aang with the water from the oasis, and along with Sokka, Toph, and the Earth King, leave Ba Sing Se in the hands of the Fire Nation.
While Aang recovers, the rest of the team is busy, reuniting with Katara's father and reorganizing to still take advantage of the eclipse. Katara is barely speaking to her father, still feeling betrayed by him for leaving, even though she knows why he did it and believes he did the right thing. When Aang wakes up and abandons the Fire Nation ship that they captured to use as cover, she, Sokka and Toph all agree to meet Hakoda (Katara's father) in the Fire Nation in several months and leave to track Aang down. They find him, and they're all reunited in their efforts, Aang finally admitting he can't do it on his own. They begin their journey into the Fire Nation, raising the spirits of those they encounter and risking everything to help the people they find along the way--the latter driven largely by Katara, as the others want to remain as anonymous as possible.
So, after her latest people-saving venture where she disguised herself as a spirit to save a town from Fire Nation soldiers and the metalworks that poisoned the town's river, they're still a-traveling, making their way slowly but surely towards the confrontation with the Fire Lord and his armies.
Reality Description:
Katara lives on a small world with five major people groups--the Fire Nation, the Earth Kingdom, the Water Tribes (Northern and Southern) and the Air Nomads, who were annihilated near the beginning of the war. It's a war that's lasted for 100 years, 100 years in which the world clung to hope that the Avatar, who disappeared as the war began, would return to end it.
BENDING -- FORMS AND VARIATIONS
Air - Just what it sounds like. They use chi to manipulate air currents and create cyclones, balls of wind, etcetera, and are extremely fast. The martial art associated with this type of bending is Ba Gua.
Water - Control of water, which throughout the series is shown to include the water inside plants and even inside the bodies of other creatures. It can also be used for healing, thanks to its association with the inside of the body. Its power is related to the moon; waterbenders are most powerful when the moon is full. This is the only time "bloodbending"--the direct manipulation of the liquids in another person's body--can be performed. The martial art associated with this type of bending is Tai Chi.
Earth - Control of earth and rock, though it's shown throughout the show that this includes sand and (in Toph's case) worked metal/minerals. The martial art associated with this type of bending is Hung Gar.
Fire - Control of fire, also lava, the manipulation of heat, and the redirection of lightning as well as the creation of it. The martial art associated with this type of bending is Northern Shaolin.
The Avatar is the only one capable of 'bending' all four elements; that is to say, using his chi to control Earth, Fire, Water and Air. The duty of the Avatar is to maintain balance between the nations, and between the human world and the spirit world.
A BREAKDOWN OF THE NATIONS' CHARACTERISTICS
Fire Nation
The most mechanically advanced of the nations, the resources they pour into war machines and prisons capable of holding the benders of other nations is substantial. They are ruthless and brutal and try to educate their children to be the same. 100 years of war has left its mark, and the history taught in Fire Nation schools has been twisted to suite the propagandistic needs of the state. There the war is referred to as "The March of Civilization" or "The Grand March of Civilization" and Sozen is celebrated as a hero for initiating it.
Earth Kingdom
The largest, wealthiest, and most architecturally sophisticated of the nations. They've held their ground against the Fire Nation since the war began, though their territory has gradually been whittled away and now much of it is occupied by the Fire Nation--after the fall of Omashu, Ba Sing Se became the final Earth Kingdom stronghold.
Air Nomads
Wiped out soon after the start of the war in an effort to prevent the reincarnation of the Avatar. Their four temples, located at the four compass corners of the world, each share characteristics with the nation closest to it. Little is known about their day-to-day lives, thanks to their extinction, but they were peace-loving and pacifistic, and due both to this an the unexpectedness of the attack, there were no known survivors aside from Aang.
Water Tribes
--Southern
Decimated by the war, they live in shattered villages comprised of women, children, and the elderly. They have no benders left, and their men left two years before the start of Katara's journey in order to assist with the war effort.
--Northern
Still a mighty civilization that has largely kept out of the war, opting for survival rather than active resistance. They live in a city carved from the ice, run through with canals. Boats are their primary means of travel, though they do use some of the larger, hardier animals of the north for travel over land. They protect the spirit oasis, a little shrine of greenery that houses the spirits Tui and La, Push and Pull, the embodiments of the Moon and the Tide.
A BRIEF AND RELEVANT HISTORY
The major players in the war are the Fire Nation and the Earth Kingdom. Though the waterbenders--particularly the Southern Water Tribe--participated near the beginning, as their resources were stripped away they faded into a purely defensive existence. The Airbenders were wiped out near the beginning of the war, but Aang, who had only shortly before been told of his position as the Avatar, had already fled and been trapped in a trance-state and frozen in an iceberg during a thunderstorm. The world slowly gave up hope of his return and the Fire Nation gradually marched its way across the world, meeting greatest resistance in the Earth Kingdom, which had enough earthbenders and normal fighters to throw their way to keep from being completely overrun. The war has existed almost in stasis, with little bouts of give and take, since Sozen's death, when Azulon (Zuko's grandfather) came to power the drive to conquer was reignited and they began their efforts again in earnest.
FOR MORE INFORMATION ABOUT AVATAR THAN YOU EVER WANTED TO KNOW, INCLUDING SCENE SUMMARIES, HISTORIES OF THE WORLD AND CHARACTERS, CREATURES ETC: http://avatar.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page
Series/Fandom: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Deviance: d1
Age: 14
Gender: Female
Species: Human (SUBSPECIES WATERBENDER LAWL)
Canon Used: Television show
Appearance: She has hair loopies. Er. ...just look at her icons. /lazy
Psychology:
She’s a mom in a kid’s body; she pretty much raised Sokka, and as a result she’s extremely protective, motherly, and at times pushy and overbearing. She’s as stubborn as an Earthbender and has a Firebender’s temper. Her vindictiveness is rather spectacular, and she can hold a grudge long past its expiration date with everyone else involved. It took Jet dying for her to really forgive him for lying to her and destroying the Earth Nation town.
Her moral and ethical standards are, at times, questionable; she’s acted the part of Robin Hood on several occasions for the benefit of others and herself, and she doesn’t hesitate to use non-lethal force to get what she wants. It’s a part of her no-nonsense personality, in some ways, but at the same time she seems to get a deal of pleasure from punishing those she sees as bullies or bad people.
She cares passionately for others, and has a heart of unquestionable warmth for those she knows and the helpless that she sees. She will go miles--literally or figuratively--out of her way to help people in need. She will, in her own words, never turn her back on someone who needs her, ever. She puts herself and really the entire expedition to the Fire Nation at risk at one point to keep that promise to herself. If she can (if she even THINKS she can help) help, she will help, and woebetide to anyone who tries to stand in her way.
After Ba Sing Se and Zuko’s near-alliance and then betrayal, she got harder, colder, more vindictive and in many ways more distant from the others; more of a caretaker and less of a friend, even. She's determined to protect Aang at all costs, and for that reason pushes herself to the limit not only of her power but of her willingness to harm another living being, which may account for some of this distance. She’s trying to disconnect as much as possible to avoid the guilt and psychological trauma of willfully harming someone else, possibly killing them.
She has an absolute terror of losing the people she cares about. It’s something she would never acknowledge, but after her mother’s death and what--to her mind--felt like abandonment by her father, she has major attachment issues. She is extremely prickly when it comes to being left behind unwillingly, and absolutely hates it when people insist on carrying a burden by themselves that she could possibly share.
Katara seems to have a particular sensitivity to lies; if someone lies to her, especially about something important, and she finds out, there’s little question that she won’t be speaking to them for the foreseeable future and will take even longer to think about trusting them again. Her trust is a fragile thing; she’s very willing to give it at first, almost naively willing, in fact, but once betrayed it’s harder to get back than SOMETHING HARD TO GET BACK.
Her mother’s death is never far from her mind. It's been a shaping force in her life, whether she acknowledges that fact or not. She misses her mother as desperately now as she ever has, and her most valuable possession is the betrothal necklace her mother handed down to her. Any slight to her heritage will draw a massive reaction, as will any implication that she doesn't understand loss. She's just as driven as her brother to defeat the Fire Nation, though not so obvious in her bias against them, choosing to target particular individuals with direct hatred rather than the entire nation.
Other Skills/Abilities: She is, at this point in canon, considered a Master waterbender of high caliber. She, like all waterbenders, is most powerful under the full moon. She is able to manipulate the chi in another person's body in order to heal them, though she is not nearly as powerful a healer as she is a fighter. Her creativity has won her a number of fights, and her lack of truly structured Waterbending teaching (up until her time under Master Paku) has made her resourceful rather than sloppy. She has a very instinctive grasp of her connection with her element, and it responds to her temper (less now than when she was untrained) with a good deal more force than an ordinary Waterbender's. To illustrate her power during the moon's ordinary cycle; she's raised columns of water thirty feet high and created enough steam to hide a Fire Nation navy ship without so much as, to be cliche, breaking a sweat.
Other Weaknesses: Her power is pretty much halved when the moon is dark. During a full lunar eclipse she would be unable to use bending at all. In spite of all her power, she's human and 14.
History: Katara was born and raised around the South Pole, in (obviously) the Southern Water Tribe, a group devastated by the war and the mass kidnapping of their waterbenders by Fire Nation raiders. Katara was the last waterbender of the Southern Water Tribe when she was a child; her mother was killed protecting her from Fire Nation raiders. Katara grew up fast after that, shouldering much of the responsibility that her mother had carried and often refusing her grandmother's help. She cared for Sokka, despite the fact that he was older, and the two are practically inseperable even if they bicker constantly. When she was twelve, her father left with the rest of the Southern Water Tribe's men to fight in the war, leaving Katara and Sokka in the care of their grandmother.
Two years later, while out fishing in a little canoe, she and Sokka were caught in a rip current that smashed their boat to pieces and left them stranded on an iceburg. During the argument that followed, Katara's instinctual waterbending ability made the iceburg crack and revealed Aang, a twelve-year-old Airbender, locked away in a trance inside the ice. When Fire Nation soldiers (led by Prince Zuko) attack their village looking for him, Katara discovers that Aang is the Avatar who disappeared one hundred years before. She determines to help him learn bending and defeat the Fire Nation, and on the pretense of knocking some Fire Nation heads, Sokka agrees to go with them to the North Pole to find Aang and Katara a Waterbending teacher.
They head first to Aang's old home, where they discover that all of the Airbenders have been massacred by the Fire Nation. When Aang finds the bones of his mentor, he loses control and enters the Avatar state, nearly destroying the temple and setting off a chain reaction that activates relics throughout the world and alerts those caring for those relics that, after 100 years, the Avatar has returned. The siblings manage to calm him and they move on, visiting Kyoshi Island (where they again faced Zuko) and meeting the female warriors there, then moving on to Omashu in the Earth Kingdom, where they met a mad old king named Bumi who turned out to be someone Aang knew from childhood. They went on, and met an earthbender named Haru whose father was imprisoned somewhere unknown. When Haru himself was arrested because of the Gaang, Katara insisted on a plan that involved her own arrest and transport to the same prison where Haru and his father were being kept, where she helped to free all the earthbenders kept there. During the solstice, when they stop to help a town with the problem of the GIANT RAMPAGING SPIRIT THAT KIDNAPS PEOPLE, they find out from Roku, one of Aang's past lives, that Aang must defeat the firelord before the end of the summer and the arrival of the comet the firebenders drew power from to begin the war.
When they discover a waterbending scroll in a pirate market and Katara steals so Aang can learn some waterbending moves--and so can she. But the pirates, once again with Zuko to help, track them down and nearly kidnap Aang. Shortly afterwards, they have their first encounter with Jet, a smooth-talking borderline sociopath who will stop at nothing to defeat the Fire Nation armies that killed his family--even going as far as wiping out an Earth Kingdom town. Katara is misled by Jet's charm and along with Aang is tricked into helping with his plan to wipe out the village which the Fire Nation is occupying; the people are saved thanks to Sokka's quick action, but Katara is furious with herself and with Jet and leaves him frozen to a tree before they leave.
Later in their travels, they meet with an old friend of Katara and Sokka's from the Southern Water Tribe who was injured and left in an abbey by Hakoda (Katara's father) to recover. After a debate over whether or not they will go with Bato to see their father, and yet another battle with Zuko, they continue on their way to the North Pole with promises to see him again soon. When they pass through a Fire Nation town during a festival, they stop so Aang can see some firebending firsthand. But when they are discovered, a stranger helps them escape, and takes them to the camp of a firebending master named Jeong Jeong. He agrees--extremely reluctantly--to teach Aang, despite the fact that he won't be learning the elements in their proper order. But Aang is careless and accidentally burns Katara's hands--when she runs away and dips them in the river, they're miraculously (or so it seems) healed, but Aang refuses to continue learning firebending--and Jeong Jeong refuses to teach him.
They stop again briefly at the Northern Air Temple on their way to the North Pole, discovering it to be occupied by Earth Kingdom refugees who have turned it into a mechanized sort of fortress. They live there in peace, the Gaang discovers, only because the leader and inventor of the group creates war machines for the Fire Nation. Despite Aang's fury over the treatment of the temple and the fact that they've been using the place to build war machines, when the Fire Nation attacks, the Gaang helps ward them off.
FINALLY, after many trials and tribulations etcetera, they reach the North Pole and the Northern Water Tribe, an immense group that lives in elaborate ice cities and serves as protectors of a shrine in which the spirits of the moon and the tides reside in the form of two fish forever circling each other. While there, Katara discovers that waterbending can be used to heal--which explains how her hands were suddenly undamaged when she immersed them in water before. While Aang learns how to fight with waterbending from Master Paku, Katara is forced to go to the healer's tents because girls aren't taught anything else. This outrages her sufficiently to go and challenge Paku, and miraculously--through sheer power and creativity--she manages to hold her own against him, earning his respect and the right to train alongside Aang.
When the Fire Nation discovers once again where the Avatar is hiding, they decide to launch an all-out campaign to destroy the Northern Water Tribe once and for all. It's a long, hard fight, costing the Northern Water Tribe's princess her life when she saves the moon-spirit from death. Aang finally enters the Avatar State and annihilates the remainder of the Fire Nation fleet, ending the battle. Time passes as they prepare to leave again, and Master Paku names Katara a waterbending master and trusts her to continue Aang's training. He also gives her water from the spirit oasis, which is said to have special healing properties. Leaving the Northern Water Tribe to rebuild not only their city, but also the decimated villages of the Southern Water Tribe, the Gaang continues their journey to try and find Aang an Earthbending teacher.
As their journey goes on, they discover that the city of Omashu has been taken by the Fire Nation, Bumi is held captive (and thus can't teach Aang) and that they are now being pursued not by Zuko, but by his sister Azula, who is absolutely ruthless and has no more concern for honor than its use in manipulating others. Following Bumi's advice and a vision Aang had, they finally manage to find an Earthbending teacher in Toph, a blind girl who uses her feet and her Earthbending to "see" the world around her. During a brief vacation time, during which Toph starts Aang's training, they journey to a desert and discover the ancient underground library of and owl-spirit. Inside is a room much like a mechanical observatory, and they discover the fact that a full solar eclipse is approaching and decide to hurry on to Ba Sing Se to alert the Earth King of this opportunity--the chance to take on the Fire Nation while their firebenders are powerless.
Unfortunately, while they were underground, Toph (who stayed above) and Appa (Aang's flying bison) were ambushed and Appa was stolen by sandbender thieves. Aang, murderous with rage, nearly kills the sandbenders responsible, but Katara calms him, and the news that Appa is probably already in Ba Sing Se calms him enough to keep traveling. When they finally reach the city, before they can try to contact the Earth King or even start their search for Appa, they discover the city's massive walls are already under attack from a giant drill captained by Azula. They manage, barely, to defeat Azula and her friends Mai and Ty Lee and destroy the drill. However, their fight has only just started; Ba Sing Se is a network of lies, controlled by a the Dai Li and their master, and it takes everything the Gaang has to reach the Earth King and prove to him that there is a war going on outside at all, let alone that they have the opportunity to do something about it.
The leader of the Dai Li is arrested, and plans move forward to wage an all-out assault against the Fire Nation. Having received news of their father's whereabouts, Sokka leaves to meet him while Katara stays to help with preparations. Aang leaves to find a guru who sent him a message via Appa (who they ended up finding in the Dai Li's custody) who can supposedly help him control the Avatar state. Azula and her friends, meanwhile, have infiltrated the Earth King's palace disguised as Kyoshi warriors. When Katara discovers them, they disable and imprison her beneath the palace in the caves. Zuko and Iroh are also found living in the city, and Zuko is thrown into prison with Katara while Iroh escapes and goes to the Gaang--who have since reunited, sans Katara--for help.
Katara, meanwhile, has been talking to Zuko. Unpleasantly. She's blamed him up, down and sideways for the war, her mother's death--and then she finds out that he lost his mother, too, thanks to the Fire Nation. This quells her as nothing else can, and she even offers to try and help him by using her water from the spirit oasis to heal his scar. As she's about to heal him, Aang and Iroh arrive, interrupting the process. They're quickly followed by Azula, and an all-out fight for their lives starts. At one point it almost looks as though Zuko will join the Gaang--but then he decides to side with his sister instead, cutting Katara's faith in him to ribbons and making her believe that everything about him--including the story of his mother--is a lie. It almost looks as though the Gaang will win when Aang begins to enter the Avatar state, but a sneak attack by Azula leaves him on the edge of death and Katara can do nothing but escape with Aang in tow, leaving Iroh to cover their escape and be captured as a traitor. She saves Aang with the water from the oasis, and along with Sokka, Toph, and the Earth King, leave Ba Sing Se in the hands of the Fire Nation.
While Aang recovers, the rest of the team is busy, reuniting with Katara's father and reorganizing to still take advantage of the eclipse. Katara is barely speaking to her father, still feeling betrayed by him for leaving, even though she knows why he did it and believes he did the right thing. When Aang wakes up and abandons the Fire Nation ship that they captured to use as cover, she, Sokka and Toph all agree to meet Hakoda (Katara's father) in the Fire Nation in several months and leave to track Aang down. They find him, and they're all reunited in their efforts, Aang finally admitting he can't do it on his own. They begin their journey into the Fire Nation, raising the spirits of those they encounter and risking everything to help the people they find along the way--the latter driven largely by Katara, as the others want to remain as anonymous as possible.
So, after her latest people-saving venture where she disguised herself as a spirit to save a town from Fire Nation soldiers and the metalworks that poisoned the town's river, they're still a-traveling, making their way slowly but surely towards the confrontation with the Fire Lord and his armies.
Reality Description:
Katara lives on a small world with five major people groups--the Fire Nation, the Earth Kingdom, the Water Tribes (Northern and Southern) and the Air Nomads, who were annihilated near the beginning of the war. It's a war that's lasted for 100 years, 100 years in which the world clung to hope that the Avatar, who disappeared as the war began, would return to end it.
BENDING -- FORMS AND VARIATIONS
Air - Just what it sounds like. They use chi to manipulate air currents and create cyclones, balls of wind, etcetera, and are extremely fast. The martial art associated with this type of bending is Ba Gua.
Water - Control of water, which throughout the series is shown to include the water inside plants and even inside the bodies of other creatures. It can also be used for healing, thanks to its association with the inside of the body. Its power is related to the moon; waterbenders are most powerful when the moon is full. This is the only time "bloodbending"--the direct manipulation of the liquids in another person's body--can be performed. The martial art associated with this type of bending is Tai Chi.
Earth - Control of earth and rock, though it's shown throughout the show that this includes sand and (in Toph's case) worked metal/minerals. The martial art associated with this type of bending is Hung Gar.
Fire - Control of fire, also lava, the manipulation of heat, and the redirection of lightning as well as the creation of it. The martial art associated with this type of bending is Northern Shaolin.
The Avatar is the only one capable of 'bending' all four elements; that is to say, using his chi to control Earth, Fire, Water and Air. The duty of the Avatar is to maintain balance between the nations, and between the human world and the spirit world.
A BREAKDOWN OF THE NATIONS' CHARACTERISTICS
Fire Nation
The most mechanically advanced of the nations, the resources they pour into war machines and prisons capable of holding the benders of other nations is substantial. They are ruthless and brutal and try to educate their children to be the same. 100 years of war has left its mark, and the history taught in Fire Nation schools has been twisted to suite the propagandistic needs of the state. There the war is referred to as "The March of Civilization" or "The Grand March of Civilization" and Sozen is celebrated as a hero for initiating it.
Earth Kingdom
The largest, wealthiest, and most architecturally sophisticated of the nations. They've held their ground against the Fire Nation since the war began, though their territory has gradually been whittled away and now much of it is occupied by the Fire Nation--after the fall of Omashu, Ba Sing Se became the final Earth Kingdom stronghold.
Air Nomads
Wiped out soon after the start of the war in an effort to prevent the reincarnation of the Avatar. Their four temples, located at the four compass corners of the world, each share characteristics with the nation closest to it. Little is known about their day-to-day lives, thanks to their extinction, but they were peace-loving and pacifistic, and due both to this an the unexpectedness of the attack, there were no known survivors aside from Aang.
Water Tribes
--Southern
Decimated by the war, they live in shattered villages comprised of women, children, and the elderly. They have no benders left, and their men left two years before the start of Katara's journey in order to assist with the war effort.
--Northern
Still a mighty civilization that has largely kept out of the war, opting for survival rather than active resistance. They live in a city carved from the ice, run through with canals. Boats are their primary means of travel, though they do use some of the larger, hardier animals of the north for travel over land. They protect the spirit oasis, a little shrine of greenery that houses the spirits Tui and La, Push and Pull, the embodiments of the Moon and the Tide.
A BRIEF AND RELEVANT HISTORY
The major players in the war are the Fire Nation and the Earth Kingdom. Though the waterbenders--particularly the Southern Water Tribe--participated near the beginning, as their resources were stripped away they faded into a purely defensive existence. The Airbenders were wiped out near the beginning of the war, but Aang, who had only shortly before been told of his position as the Avatar, had already fled and been trapped in a trance-state and frozen in an iceberg during a thunderstorm. The world slowly gave up hope of his return and the Fire Nation gradually marched its way across the world, meeting greatest resistance in the Earth Kingdom, which had enough earthbenders and normal fighters to throw their way to keep from being completely overrun. The war has existed almost in stasis, with little bouts of give and take, since Sozen's death, when Azulon (Zuko's grandfather) came to power the drive to conquer was reignited and they began their efforts again in earnest.
FOR MORE INFORMATION ABOUT AVATAR THAN YOU EVER WANTED TO KNOW, INCLUDING SCENE SUMMARIES, HISTORIES OF THE WORLD AND CHARACTERS, CREATURES ETC: http://avatar.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page